This invention relates to devices or tools for manually sharpening or renewing the blade of a skate.
It is a well known fact that ice skates have blades which must be kept sharp in order for the skate to work properly and smoothly and in order to permit the user to skate quickly. Most regular skaters, including hockey players, recreational skaters and figures skaters will have their skates sharpened frequently possibly every time that the skates are used with the actual frequency of sharpening depending upon the length of use of the skates each time and the manner of use. Professional hockey players may sharpen their skates as often as three times per game.
Various methods and devices have been proposed for sharpening skate blades. Commonly, the bottom edge of a skate blade is ground using a fast rotating abrasive wheel with the wheel generally being driven by a motor. After the edge has been sharpened with such a wheel, it is common practice to use an oilstone with aluminum oxide or carborundum cutting granules to smooth and clean the sides of the blade.
Various portable or handheld skate sharpening devices have been proposed in the past. For example, recent U.S. Pat. No. 5,239,785 issued Aug. 31, 1993 to R. H. Allen describes a finishing tool having a pair of slots disposed along opposing faces. Disposed within each slot is a strip of leather material which can be secured therein by adhesive or fasteners. This holder is sized and dimensioned so that it can be handheld and readily manipulated during finishing of a skate blade. The top face of the holder has an angled portion with another strip of leather thereon, this strip being used to facilitate finishing the side faces of the blade. According to this patent specification, the leather strip can be used to remove foreign material deposited by the skate sharpening process and small burrs remaining on the blade surface. It will be appreciated that this patent specification describes a stropping tool and not a skate sharpener.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,585,880 issued Jun. 22, 1971 to B. Kabriel describes an ice skate sharpening tool having a generally T-shaped body with cross arms and a stem. Extending the length of the stem is a longitudinal slot which is undercut along one side to permit one side of the stem to flex in order to accommodate different skate blades. A central opening or recess in this tool receives two carbide cutting inserts which are the same size and shape. These inserts are rectangular and provide eight cutting edges for sharpening purposes. The inserts are positioned at right angles to one another and are transverse of and perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the slot. With this device the skate must be turned to sharpen both sides of the blade.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,815,240 issued Mar. 28, 1989 to C. M. Larson describes a handheld skate sharpener with first and second exposed slots located in opposite sides thereof. The single sharpening element in this tool has a generally convex surface exposed within the first slot which is used to sharpen the bottom edge of the blade and has a generally flat surface exposed in the second slot so that the tool can also be used as a deburring device for removing burrs from opposed walls of the blade. However, with this device only one wall or side of the blade can be deburred at a time.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an inexpensive, easy to use tool for renewing, recreating or refurbishing edges on a skate blade and the opposing sides of the blade.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a tool for renewing both edges or sides of a skate blade at the same time, which tool can be used between the usual skate sharpening sessions employing a fast rotating aluminum oxide or silicone carbide wheel.